Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/News/November 2015/Op-ed
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A Statistical Tragedy |
- By TomStar81
Approximately five weeks after the Kingdom of Bulgaria aligned itself with the Central Powers and subsequently declared war on the Kingdom of Serbia, the combined might of the German, Bulgarian and Austro-Hungarian militaries combined with the losses that the Serbians had already suffered during the course of World War I led to the collapse of the Serbian Army. The collapse of the Serbian Army officially started on 25 November 1915 when then Marshal Radomir Putnik, commander of the Serbian Army, officially ordered a retreat of the forces that had been fighting the newest invasion force sent against it. The ordered retreat would take the Serbian Army to what was at the time the Principality of Albania by way of the Kingdom of Montenegro.
Historically, there are many examples of military forces that have for one reason or another been compelled to withdraw or retreat. Most are characterized as either organized or disorganized, based on several factors. Some examples – such as the Long March undertaken by communist forces in what is today the People's Republic of China or the Dunkirk evacuation during World War II that saw British, Belgium, and French forces successfully withdrawn with minimal losses – have proven to be spectacular successes due to the ability of the force in question to redeploy in a meaningful way after disengaging. Conversely, other withdrawals and retreats – such as the one undertaken by the French Empire following Napoleon's invasion of Russia – are remembered as disasters, sometimes for reasons beyond the retreating force's control, such as poor weather, as well as inadequate food, water, or clothing supplies, lack of medical treatments for disease, and other factors.
Along with the physical stress that comes with a withdrawal or retreat comes the mental stress from the demands placed upon a force involved in withdrawal or retreat, for which morale serves as a barometer of the general mood of the force in question. When morale is high, forces usually have a gung-ho attitude and are ready to get into the fight, when morale runs low troops are generally bummed. If morale drops low enough two very real threats emerge: desertion and mutiny. When a member of the armed forces gives up mentally and abandons ship (so to speak) they can leave without permission, depriving their respective military of troops needed for battle and risking court martial and possible execution if caught. In the case of mutiny, an even more dangerous risk to a nation emerges if an entire military openly opposes, changes, or overthrows lawful authority to which it is nominally subject. Mutiny has likely been an issue since the first humans took up rocks and sticks to pummel each other, but over the years the implications of mutiny has become more and more disturbing as our weapons technology has advanced, although mercifully to date no major military mutiny is known to have occurred with regards to personnel entrusted with protection or use of humanity's currently classified weapons of mass destruction.
In the case of the Serbian Army's retreat in November, "disaster" ended up being the most accurate description of the process. As well as poor supply and sanitary conditions, which had already had a major impact on the engaged military forces, November leads into the winter season in the Northern Hemisphere, and the weather at the time of the retreat was not conducive to campaigning. Bad weather adversely effected the unpaved roads, leaving them in poor condition; this hampered both the retreating Serbian Army as well as the invading Bulgarian, German, and Austro-Hungarian forces, resulting in no immediate strategic benefit to either side. Despite the order to retreat and the collapse of the front, Serbia's military remained loyal and executed the withdrawal in an orderly fashion, thus diminishing the threat of mutiny and desertion from Serbian soldiers involved in the retreat.
Along with the Serbian Army, a sizable number of Serbian civilians began to withdraw with the military along the affected roads. This had the inadvertent effect of compelling the Serbian Army to protect its non-combatants while simultaneously taxing the already severely depleted reserves of food and other supplies that were sorely needed for the retreat. The combined military and civilian force successfully managed to cross the Albanian mountains, frustrating attempts by the invading forces to capture the group, but the circumstances of the retreat as a whole were disastrous. During the journey, approximately 200,000 Serbs perished in the Albanian mountains and thousands more died once they arrived on the Greek island of Corfu, the destination for the retreat. Because of the massive loss of life, the Serbian Army's retreat through Albania is considered by Serbs to be one of the greatest tragedies in their nation's history. The survivors of the retreat were so weakened that thousands of them died from sheer exhaustion in the weeks after their rescue.
In the aftermath of the retreat's completion, a contingent of the Serbian Army was sent to Bizerte, and many of the civilian refugees who accompanied the army's retreat were accepted by France. The sick and dying, mostly soldiers, were treated on Vido to prevent epidemics, while the main camps of the recuperating Serbian Army were on the island of Corfu itself. In spite of Allied material help, the conditions of both the improvised medical facilities and many of the patients on the island resulted in a high fatality rate. Due to the small area of the island and because of its rocky soil, it soon became a necessity to bury the dead at sea. As human bodies will float if not weighed down those charged with burying the deceased had to bind rocks to the corpses to prevent them form floating back to the surface. More than 5,000 Serbs were buried in such a manner in what became known as the Blue Graveyard (Plava Grobnica), near the Greek island of Vido.
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